Gorbachev Rues Jewish Exodus

October 07, 1991|By Vincent J. Schodolski, Chicago Tribune.

MOSCOW — In a statement unprecedented for a Soviet leader, President Mikhail Gorbachev admitted publicly Sunday that Soviet society has been infected with anti-Semitism for decades and that he regretted the huge exodus of Jews from the country.

Gorbachev`s statement, issued on the 50th anniversary of the Nazi massacre of more than 30,000 Jews at Babi Yar in Ukraine, ended three quarters of a century of official silence about the treatment of Soviet Jews. He said that despite an official policy decrying discrimination against the nation`s Jewish population, Jews had been widely persecuted.

``The poisonous seeds of anti-Semitism arose even on Soviet soil,`` the president said in a message carried by the Tass news agency. ``The Stalinist bureaucracy, publicly decrying anti-Semitism, in practice used it to isolate the country from the outside world, counting on chauvinism to strengthen its hold.``

Gorbachev added that despite the changes that have taken place during more than six years of his reforms, intolerance remained and that the nation had suffered because of the hemorrhage of millions of talented people.

``The right to emigrate has been granted, but I say frankly that we, society, deeply regret the departure of our countrymen and that the country is losing so many talented, skilled and enterprising citizens,`` Gorbachev said. More than 500,000 Soviet Jews have left the country for Israel during the last 10 years. Some 200,000 have emigrated to the U.S. and other countries during the same period and emigration officials predict that at least a million more will leave in the next few years.

Among those who have left have been tens of thousands of highly educated people who have taken to Israel and the U.S. skills, frequently scientific, acquired in the Soviet Union.

These were skills that the Soviet system never allowed the emigrants to fully exploit, usually because of discriminatory policies in government and academic institutions where Jews sought careers.

While emigration has been liberalized, there still are thousands of Jews unable to leave the USSR.

Some of these people are blocked by existing regulations prohibiting those who have worked in sensitive government jobs where they had access to secret material from leaving.

Such regulations regularly have been used to stop Jews from emigrating, despite the fact that the material they worked with was no longer sensitive.

New liberalized emigration and travel policies are to go into force in the Soviet Union in July 1992. Under these rules, Soviet citizens will be guaranteed the right to travel and emigrate, and prohibitions of leaving the country because of work in sensitive government jobs will be relaxed.

About 9,800 Soviet Jews immigrated to Israel in September, bringing the total for the year to about 116,000, much lower than originally predicted by the government, immigration officials said Sunday.

High unemployment in Israel, particularly among immigrants, is the main issue keeping potential newcomers away, said Gad Ben-Ari, spokesman of the Jewish Agency, a quasi-governmental body that settles immigrants.

Gorbachev`s comments were read by longtime adviser Alexander Yakovlev, who represented the Soviet president at ceremonies in Ukraine marking the events half a century ago.

The Nazis killed an estimated 30,000 Jews at the Babi Yar ravine near the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, on Sept. 29-30, 1941.

The Soviet government maintained for decades that the majority of those who died-most were machined-gunned on the edge of the ravine and allowed to fall into the pit-were not Jews.

While this position has changed during the years of Gorbachev`s reforms, his statement Sunday was the most explicit yet on years of official Soviet anti-Semitism.

He blamed prejudice and indifference on the part of ``public and administrative structures`` for the fact that so little had changed regarding attitudes toward Jews in Soviet society during the last few years.

Gorbachev`s statement also emphasized the suffering of Jews during World War II.

``Among tens of millions of dead, there were almost 6 million Jews, representatives of a great nation, dispersed by fate across the planet,``

Gorbachev said.

``Babi Yar is testimony that both on our soil and everywhere in Europe, Jews were always among the Nazis` first victims.``

Soviet Jews recently have expressed growing anxiety about public expressions of anti-Semitism and have said they were concerned that Jews would be singled out for greater persecution as the nation`s economic situation worsened.

Many Soviet Jewish leaders say their lives have improved during the Gorbachev years.

Others warn that there are still indications that Soviet anti-Semitism remains virulent amid Soviet economic decay and cite the rise of arch-conservatives who blame Jews for the nation`s present ills.